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Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

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Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#51

Post by suture »

rayiner wrote: post #12
wil421 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame the senator from West Virginia who refused to vote on some of the Dems bills.

Blame Democrats for the college educated urban-dominated coalition they’ve deliberately chosen. I recall some activist types talking a few years ago about whether pro life Dems like Manchin should be kicked out of the party. Though it’s the House not the Senate, Dems just lost a longtime majority-Hispanic seat in south Texas: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/14/texas-special-electi... . To give you an idea of the…

Republicans abandoned people who are in favor of abortion. Republicans abandoned liberal Republicans like Bill Weld. Every party abandons people. Democrats consistently hold majority views on a wide range of policy issues and consistently have more votes in national elections. Gerrymandering so that urban centers lose their voting power and other election rigging techniques is what is holding back Democratic policies. The Democratic Party should not abandon its highly popular core principles to cater to the deranged apportionment that the U.S. has.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#52

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #40
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, both Manchin and Sinema self-identify as democracts, which some argue is all you really need these days. More importantly to me, however, if we rely on actions and not words, they consciously elect to remain members of Democractic party ( as opposed to say.. being Republican, Independent, Green or whatever ). For all practical reporting purposes, they are Democracts. The moment you apply 'but they voted for X', y…

Context matters. The original post I replied to was admonishing Democrats as a bloc for not trying to reform healthcare, specifically with a taxpayer funded option. The reality is that Democrats, as a bloc, are the only ones to have even attempted taxpayer funded healthcare, and somewhat succeeded. Just because a couple people who label themselves Democrats, but do not vote with them does not make sense to blame Demo…

It is my bad. I did not read down-voted comment closely enough. I do have a problem with casting senate control as 60 votes, but your rationale makes sense now.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#54

Post by FreqSep »

rxhernandez wrote: post #23
refurb wrote: post #21

Quoted post unavailable.

In TFA: "A quarter of adults with health care debt owe more than $5,000."

Note that this data is from a poll, not actual investigations of medical account balances. It includes the following, very broad, categories in the original polling methodology:

“c. Any debt you owe to a bank, collection agency, or other lender that includes debt or loans used to pay medical or dental bills.

d. Any medical or dental bills that you have put on a credit card, and are paying off over time.”

Thus, by one interpretation, if you’re already in over $5,000 of credit card debt, and you charge a $10 prescription fill or $25 copay to that credit card, their methodology will now include you in the medical debt and medical debt amount statistics as having medical debt over $5,000. The specific wording of the “amount” question seemingly tries to prevent this, but considering the above was classified as medical debt prior in the polling, it’s not hard at all to imagine people answering in the affirmative.

Is this really true? I don’t know, that’s a complicated discussion. There are certainly people who are paying medical costs with credit cards. They deserve to be included. But it does seem possibly a bit too broad.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#55

Post by lotsofpulp »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #52
lotsofpulp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context matters. The original post I replied to was admonishing Democrats as a bloc for not trying to reform healthcare, specifically with a taxpayer funded option. The reality is that Democrats, as a bloc, are the only ones to have even attempted taxpayer funded healthcare, and somewhat succeeded. Just because a couple people who label themselves Democrats, but do not vote with them does not make sense to blame Demo…

It is my bad. I did not read down-voted comment closely enough. I do have a problem with casting senate control as 60 votes, but your rationale makes sense now.

Why should Senate control not be considered 60 votes, if that is what is needed to accomplish the legislation in question?

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#56

Post by lotsofpulp »

egberts1 wrote: post #53

Anyone who owes $5 or more in outstanding medical bill is counted as part of 1/3rd of country. Really? How about year-long debt or 30-60-90 day breakout chart by amount?

It is always the same poor journalism tactic of obscuring the distribution of data to make a “plausible” controversial claim. Similar to the oft quoted “Americans cannot afford a $500 emergency”.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#58

Post by FreqSep »

burkaman wrote: post #49
refurb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I “owed” that when my kid was born. Deductible plus co-insurance added up to about that. Not saying some people don’t have “bad” medical debt (they can’t repay) but to lump in all debt as “bad” is silly. Edit: Oh, it's a poll. Similar to the poll that said "Households earnings more than $250,000 are stuggling financially". I mean, it's a poll? Did you expect people to say "nah, I have medical debt but I can ha…

Please just read the article if you want to argue about it, it's not that long. > And about 1 in 5 with any amount of debt said they don't expect to ever pay it off. That's 20 million people. > About 1 in 7 people with debt said they've been denied access to a hospital, doctor, or other provider because of unpaid bills, according to the poll. That's 14 million people. > An even greater share ― about two-thirds ― have…

> Half of U.S. adults don't have the cash to cover an unexpected $500 health care bill

I recognize that this is an important discussion to have to improve US healthcare, so I’m not outright disagreeing with you.

But I think this is a bit editorialized. Paying with cash is so rare in society. I don’t even have the cash to pay for my lunch - I just use a credit card. It shouldn’t be surprising.

Half of U.S. adults said they would pay it immediately.(30% using savings,20% using a credit card they pay off that month)

A further 21% said they would pay with a credit card and pay it off over time. (Anyone who is already in other forms of debt will probably take this option as they, by definition, don’t have the cash for other things.)

Another 5% said they would make a payment plan with a provider / pay overtime.

That’s 76% of the country that is knowledgeable about reasonable ways to pay for the services. Now, 24% using worse off options or not knowing - that’s not good at all. But it’s a far cry from the implication that “half of people can’t pay”

But still this isn’t really a metric on the U.S. healthcare system directly - that would be asking why we have unexpected $500 bills, not which payment method people are using. And alternatively, or even in tandem, why people are not saving and planning ahead.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#59

Post by jioujoijoijoi »

swarnie wrote: post #43

Anyone fancy giving universal healthcare another stab? Either to save lives: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/universal-health-... Or to save money: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2200536119 The aversion to it honestly baffles me.

No post body was provided.

Re: Sick and struggling to pay, 100M people in the U.S. live with medical debt

#60

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #55
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my bad. I did not read down-voted comment closely enough. I do have a problem with casting senate control as 60 votes, but your rationale makes sense now.

Why should Senate control not be considered 60 votes, if that is what is needed to accomplish the legislation in question?

I think, because, in theory at least[1], simple majority in Senate is all that you should need to pass a bill. To the best of my understanding, 60 is just for being filibuster-proof.

Your question is qualified enough to relate specifically to the bill listed by OP, but, again in theory, if the bill wasn't so off-putting that senators decided to filibuster, maybe it would pass.

In other words, 60 is not control; 60 is safety. 50+1 is control albeit minimal.

[1]https://www.house.gov/the-house-explained/the-legislative-pr...

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